The caverns of the Eirie are grand and souring. Fitting for a winged race. Yet if you look at how they watch the young infants play you can still see the scars of what has come to be called just “The Trajedy.” It was ten years ago now. The trajedy that haunts us. It was back when the Tyrant still held sway over our lands before the Kings and Queens of our land returned and defeated him. They were dark days. The Eirie were forced to excavate our quarries to breaking point for stone to build identical houses for each of the races of Evoniah. Houses that were curses to most of the other races. We didn't mind houses of stone, we lived in them before. Odd that a race of winged folk live in caves really, but that is part of our great history. Once we lived on the surface of the mountains we call home, when Winter and Autumn killed us. Until the First rulers bound the five races together, each race helping another with similar issues. The Lenaessere helped us build the caverns, places where we were safe from the snow and ice. Shelters for our cattle and homes withing the caverns. This was the worst that the Tyrant did, it was part of what made him a monster, blithely killing large portions of all races by completely ignoring that their needs weren't human. Or perhaps that had been his plan, to crush them enough that they would never resist him again. Resistance had been attempted, of course. Maybe that was another reason he had us mining stone. Since that stone was so near the Caverns of the Ries. The Ries were the Clan that had been the personal guard of our King or Queen. The Ries had been decimated by the first resistence attempt. The Clan was left with all but no adult members, only very young children. So the remaining Ries became the guardians of our children. That was another reason that The Trajedy was such a loss. It hit the Ries harder than all the rest of the Clans.
It was afternoon, so the children were napping, their guardians at the only entrance to the large cavern. Their parents were working in the quarry, but everyone heard the loud crack that was everyone's only warning. The cave collapsed. It is believed that there were no survivors. There were over one hundred children in that cavern, it was supposed to be the safest place in our entire domain. Our people are long lived, we do not bear children easily. It isn't uncommon for it to take fifty years to concieve. So the loss of so many of our children was devastating. The Ries lost all remaining full-blooded females, in an essentially matriarchial society this was truly devastating.
It is believed that no one survived. But there was. One lone child, one of the youngest, a mere four years old in a race that are considered children until they are fifty and do not marry until over one hundred. The child was shielded by the bodies of all that remained of her family, most having died in the resistance. The girl had to crawl over rubble and dead bodies to escape, though a small gap that none larger than her would fit through. No one ever discovered that I was in that cavern. No one ever knew that there was a survivor. But now, as all who can claim Ries blood gather today. Today they will know of the last full-blooded Ries female. The only remaining direct decendant of our Clan-Queen. Me.
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